Sunday, July 27, 2008

'Bye, Ned: Bill Shaikin Pens Colletti's Epitaph As GM

The Angels' players do not respect Mike Scioscia because he wears a championship ring or because he blocked home plate back in the day; they respect him because he straps on the catcher's gear and teaches how to block the plate on 90-degree days in spring training.

There's too much palpable distrust of kids in this organization. Whether or not Scioscia is strapping on the tools of ignorance in spring training, he understands the role that kids are expected to have and sticks to the plan until either the kid plays himself out of a role or gets a fair chance to do his job. Unlike the Dodgers, the Angels don't keep finding ways to block promising rookies with Proven Veteran Leaders — not that the Angels don't have an eye for bad free agency deals, but in general they haven't been eager to do deals that work against the team at multiple levels the way the Dodgers have done, cutting into playing time for the kids while providing little actual value, and worse, in the case of the Blake trade, shipping off some interesting talent at the lower levels and blocking a ready-for-the-Show Andy LaRoche in a year that really doesn't matter. It was immensely frustrating today to listen to Charlie Steiner in the radio broadcast today trying to minimize the value of both Jon Meloan and Carlos Santana. This is a team at sea, and even if Torre were to don a chest plate and face mask, it still couldn't fix the "win now" mentality at the top that will end with them winning exactly never.